As Usual, Media Not Reporting Whole Story

I’ve written a time or three about the national deficit, the absolute evilness that it has become. Pardon me for dragging my soapbox out again, but our politicians (and yes, whether we want to claim them or not, they are ours!) have shamelessly and recklessly spent more than they bring in year after year after year after year . . .

Why? Greed. Corruption. Laziness. Inability. Indifference. The reasons are almost endless and not one – not nairy a single one – is a good look for any current or past U.S. Representative or Senator. Not. One.

Shame on them all.

OK, soapbox scooted back under the desk . . .

Let’s talk about a recent report that says these new tariffs the national media likes to tout as the greatest thing since sliced bread or a sign of the coming apocalypse (depending on which station you tune in) may actually be making a positive difference with our $37 trillion national deficit.

Brief aside – let’s leave Donald J. and any other hired hands out of it for the time being. It seems we can’t have a substantive discussion once this side or that is tossed in the mix?

This is not about them. It’s about dollars and our grandchildren.

According to a report from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the revenue from the controversial tariffs is more than $100 billion in the last five months. Sure, that’s a long way from $37 trillion, but remember what the late great Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen said: “A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

The Committee, by the way, is about as non-partisan as it gets. It was created in 1981 by former U.S. Rep. Robert Giaimo, a Democrat from Connecticut and former U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, a Republican from Oklahoma. The board of directors consists of business people and House and Senate budget committee members and some folks tossed in from the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Accountability Office for good measure. It’s a 501(c)(3). Initially, it fought against an excise tax on the tobacco industry, but a little more than a decade ago started paying attention to our “red ink rising” crisis.

Before you buy whole hog into the notion that these tariffs are going to be the ruin of us all – raising prices and unfairly penalizing the rest of the world – consider:

• There were countries paying a lower tariff fee to the U.S. than we were charging them, creating a trade imbalance.
• If prices on imports go up, that opens the door in a free economy for someone (in the U.S. hopefully) to build a better mousetrap.
• And most importantly, as the report says, the tariffs might actually slow and eventually reduce the federal deficit.

Is it the end all, be all answer for solving the national debt crisis. Nope. But maybe it’s a start. All I know for sure is that the insanity of piling up million, billions and trillions in debt must stop. If it does not, to paraphrase Dirksen, pretty soon we’ll be talking real money. Ours.

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically in The Times. Timmons is the chief executive officer of Sagamore News Media, the company that owns The Noblesville Times. He is also a proud Noblesville High School graduate and can be contacted at ttimmons@thetimes24-7.com.